A piece from here a piece from there. I pull the parts together where, the facts I've found and those still gone are segments searched and sought so long. Together joined and linked I find, small questions answered in my mind. Assembling self and as I go, not really half, but never whole.

Assembling Self

Friday, March 23, 2012

Well beside the uneducated advice and opinions of those "well meaning" people who dictate to us how thankful and grateful we should be someone wanted us, and how lucky we are we weren't tossed in a dumpster or aborted, there are so many other points to cover on why adoptees do not love adoption. So many of us do not fit into complete opposite biology from our own in our adoptive familes. So many of us are then further rejected after the cute baby adoptee grows into the genetic person they are. Then, so many of us encounter much to our dismay the fact that we are treated like commodities subject to government rule and regulation. Shocking, untrue, and unfounded you say, how could this be adoption is wonderful?! Just wait it gets even more unbelievable.

Let's begin with the religious entities that govern and facilitate adoption and the fraud and corruption within them, that also involves a great deal of immorality and lack of ethics. I'm not a full blown search angel but I do help others and try and guide adoptees as to where to go, who to talk to, and where to start searching. In the last year, and especially in the last month, I have been in touch with several adoptees I tried to provide help for that aren't "found" in the system of adoption. They hold ammended birth certificates and have adoptive parents who have given them identifying information including birth names, and some even have adoption paperwork in hand. STILL no one can find them and they are told they don't "exist" in the system. There is no recourse for information, family history or background, let alone the chance to obtain current family medical history for themselves or their children. Many search with that little they have for years without ever finding biological family. Try "finding" with last names that are 20-30 or more years old like Smith, Jones, or Miller and first names of Jane, John, or Bill and mothers who have married and remarried and changed their original last names.

Other adoptees, too numerous to count, have registered with state and local adoption agencies looking for information and or connections to their biological families. Many biological families have contacted the previous mentioned looking for the same. Both sets of people are turned away told that no one has contacted them, or they are not entitled to that information, or no matches have been found for them. Later, sometimes years later they find one another outside of these systems only to realize they were given incorrect information or NO information pertaining to the fact that these people were desperately attempting to reconnect. And sadly, more than sadly, many find they are too late and one or MORE of the parties is deceased and the chance at reunion and relationships have been lost. The damage and fall out from this can be devastating I know, I lived without much of that information that could have changed and saved parts of my life for decades.

The majority of these religious entities, and there are hundreds registered as non-profits and are tax exempt take in large amounts of money beyond the non-adopted persons true comprehension, who continue to profit off adoptees in post adoption situations such as Confidential Intermediary programs, the request for non-identifying information, or for reunion services. Private adoptions in Texas via lawyers can operate under the table and without scrutiny and transparency making them much more fraught with illegalities and at risk for young woman and children being taken advantage of. More recently International Adoption fraud has been in the news in countries such as Australia, Spain, and China just to name a few. The much loved Gladney Center for Adoption has been sued several times over including a class action suit brought by adoptive parents for lack of disclosure to pertinent and accurate information about the children they adopted and their biological family background. Settled out of court....of course.

What we as adoptees here in the United States know all too well is how rampant it runs within our own country's system of adoption. Most adoptees don't have the time, energy, or are monetarily equipped to go up against these adoption agencies, parties, and entities legally because these large wealthy non-profits and government institutions DO have plenty of time and money to keep anyone accusatory tied up lengthy legal battles. However, some adoptees have sued and won, or even had their adoption reversed and declared illegal. I could state case after case but there is google for that if you don't take my word for it. Or, contact me privately and I'll give you an ear full.

What is so very disconcerting and disgusting is the propaganda by which these agencies are allowed to advertise children complete with price lists and legal costs to adopt babies still yet unborn still in the womb! Crisis pregnancy billboards, bumper stickers, and even posters on the walls of planned parenthood expounding on the virtues of adoption are prevalent here locally. Pregnant girls and woman are continually being primed for sainthood for unselfishly giving up their children into better circumstances and then kicked to the curb and their open adoption promise closes when the ink on the relinquishment papers dry, and the door to contact with their child is shut tight on them. All of this done in the name of creating families but in reality it is child trafficking.

I've only touched the tip of the proverbial ice berg here in regards to the lack of ethics and morality and fraud in adoption. And most of the time it's not going to be broadcast in head line news, in workplace conversation at the water cooler, or in friendly conversations. It is best known and lived in the hearts and souls of adoptees.

The Powers That Be

You took away my family.
You took away my home.
You erased away my history and most of it is gone.
What gives to you the right to do this injustice unto me?
How can you be so blinded?
How is it you can't see?
You're stealing from the innocent are you so unaware?
You're playing God with all our lives, did you think we wouldn't care?
Who gave to you authority to decide how we should live?
Who granted you this power?
It was not theirs to give.
You treat us as possessions.
We are not yours to own.
How did you get the notion you can tell me where is home?
Do not dictate to me about how I should live my life.
Or who I can call mother.
Then take away my rights.
The answers to life's questions you say I need not know.
You're asking the impossible the questions only grow.
What it is I'm asking for is for you to understand.
Until I have those answers I can not know who it is I am!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

I remember watching this as a child and relating to Marilyn on the show well. She seemed to handle being so different in a very scary family with ease. I always wondered if she was pretending as I was in my adoptive family, or if she really did blend in well. And if it was the latter just HOW did she do it??? Inquiring adopted person wants to know!

I am pretty much nothing like my adopted family I even go so far as call it 99% the exact opposite. Since our genetics in every way were and are so different, and people didn't talk about adoption and the issues it brought into family situations, I was always the one at fault for not fitting in. Throughout my childhood and teens years it was evident everything about me was wrong according to what expectations were of who I was supposed to be. I wish I could say that I was one of the few adoptees who experiences this but I am far from it. There are so many of us out there who are rejected by not one but two families for simply doing nothing else than losing at the adoption "lottery".

Lately, it has gotten to where I can't talk about the recent developments in my adopted situation with anyone but other adoptees. No one gets it, and I know they can't, but the fact that comparisons are made frustrate me. I realize people feel they don't belong in their families, or they are not accepted as they are, or they are rejected by blood relatives. But they know where they came from, they were not cut off from their biological roots and birth, and they at least had some kind of bonding in some capacity with people they share genes, family history, and genealogy with. I'm really growing weary of trying to put the two into the same category. I'd say it's like comparing apples with oranges but it's not. It's more like comparing apples to a huge steaming pile of crap. The big steaming pile of crap to many adoptees is adoption.

Ever since I can remember I've tried to figure out how to be someone else that was acceptable. I've had to lie and cheat and steal. Lie about who I am, cheat myself out of trusting who I really was, and steal identities and the traits of others to create myself throughout the years. I had to wait until 39 years of age to get a glimpse at my biological family information and at 52 and three court petitions, one in progress, I STILL do not have names, cities, or states where my natural parents are, nor do I have the ability to tell my blood siblings I exist.

It's not just me who has suffered but my children as well. They lost out on a whole other side of a family too. "Family" is what you make it but it never replaces what was lost. There are people who have lost the use of their legs and are glad they still have arms but that doesn't mean they take the place of the legs that they no longer have use of. Even the great spiritual guru and leader Wayne Dyer talks of growing up in orphanages and the long search for his biological father and in finding a grave he at last found peace and closure.

Losing ties to your own, biological and or adoptive, parents can bring even the strongest and greatest person to their knees. I harp on this a great deal but it's true. There are two things that
are important in life family and health. When you lose both as I have, you can lose
nearly everything. Not only income, or careers, or educational
opportunities, homes, and relationships but when you are adopted and
have lost not just one but two family connections you not only can
become physically homeless, but emotionally too. For me, the latter has been worse.

The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose. ~Richard Grant